Taking Stock!

The television screen still flickered with the shifting light of a comedy program, its sound echoing softly through the cramped space.

Natsume Chikage looked down at his little sister in his arms and saw her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, her breathing even and deep, her eyes gently closed.

At some point, she had quietly fallen asleep.

Carefully supporting Natsume Ruri, he gently laid her flat on the tatami, then quietly turned off the television and moved aside the small table in the middle of the room.

In this cramped three-tsubo room, there was simply no way to lay out the bedding without moving the table first.

After shifting it into a corner, Natsume Chikage took the futons from the closet and quietly spread them over the tatami.

Only after finishing all that did he gently lift his sister in his arms, place her on the prepared bedding, and carefully tuck in the corners of her blanket.

Click—

The moment the light went out, the narrow three-tsubo room sank completely into darkness and silence.

Using the faint light from outside the window, Natsume Chikage felt his way back to his own bedding and lay down.

Though the window was open and the night breeze carried in a hint of coolness, he stared at the low ceiling and still felt an indescribable sense of suffocation rising in his chest.

This three-tsubo space was simply too small.

Within this tiny patch of space, they had crammed in a kitchen, a bathroom, storage cabinets, and piles of appliances, daily necessities, and hanging laundry.

Those things alone already occupied more than half the room.

If the siblings had not always lived frugally, kept everything organized, and done their utmost to minimize their belongings, this three-tsubo room would probably have barely left them anywhere to stand.

Although the room was tiny and the rent could hardly be called cheap, they did not have many options in a place as expensive as Shibuya.

After their family went bankrupt, the two siblings had been left with almost nothing.

Being able to find a place like this in Shibuya was already incredibly fortunate.

If they had been unable to rent even this cheap three-tsubo room back then, they might truly have ended up on the streets.

Even so, they still had no idea where next month's rent would come from.

At the moment, Natsume Chikage had only around twenty thousand yen left in his wallet.

And the monthly rent for this room was sixty thousand yen.

To gather enough, he would have to wait for his paycheck from the coffee shop.

Even if he somehow scraped together the rent, their daily expenses for food, clothing, and transportation would become another problem...

And his novel was still unfinished. Even after finishing it, it would still need to go through typesetting, printing, and release. Whether he could receive any royalties quickly next month would be entirely up to luck.

That meant that if he failed to win at least three consecutive matches in the Rising Shogi Tournament, then even if he did not end up sleeping on the streets next month, he would be doomed to go hungry and struggle at every turn.

So, he had to win!

Fortunately, his Mental attribute had now risen to 6 points. His current speed of thought was far beyond what it had been when it was only 5.

That would undoubtedly help with shogi.

He was completely confident that if his current self played against the self from not long ago, he would win without question!

Because in shogi, the gap between a player who could calculate ten moves ahead and one who could calculate twenty was as vast as the difference between heaven and earth.

The amount of calculation involved also increased geometrically.

The farther ahead one could plan, the greater one's chances of victory!

That was also the fundamental difference between professional players, amateur players, and Shoreikai players.

Their calculation abilities were simply not on the same level!

Natsume Chikage's current calculating ability in shogi was no longer something his former self could compare to.

But the problem he now faced went far beyond money.

The imbalance between his Mental attribute and Physical attribute was the most troublesome issue.

He had to gather three pieces of special equipment as quickly as possible.

If things truly reached a critical point, Natsume Chikage would not care about pride or dignity. He would directly ask his sister to give him her bracelet.

As for the other special equipment, he would also do whatever it took to get his hands on it!

Of course, that was the worst-case scenario.

Things had not reached the point of no return yet. His body was merely suffering from some delayed discomfort.

But if this continued, the consequences would be impossible to predict...

Therefore, Natsume Chikage decided that he needed to take the initiative more aggressively in the near future!

He would find a way to obtain at least three out of five items: his sister's bracelet, Yukimura Suzune's Literary Trinket, Kondo Miyuki's collectible boxing magazine, Fujiwara Aoi's sports watch, and Tsukishima Rin's violin.

As for the Confession Cherry Blossom Tree, he could only give up on it for the time being.

Given his current circumstances, he had no way of making it his own.

Natsume Chikage remembered Yasui Ryoto mentioning that if he found that shogi board, he would definitely bring it to school and return it to him.

He sincerely hoped that, like the game record from before, that board would also be a piece of special equipment.

If that was truly the case, the pressure of collecting three special pieces of equipment in the short term would be greatly eased, directly reducing the requirement by one.

He would only need to obtain two more items from the list above!

Late at night.

Yet Natsume Chikage felt no sleepiness at all.

Before drowsiness set in, he planned to keep working hard on his writing.

After all, the potential earnings from The Devotion of Suspect X, the novel he was writing, were far beyond anything he could make from part-time work or shogi tournament prizes.

This was a true masterpiece—one that, once completed, could potentially bring in over a hundred million in earnings!

It was just that he had been far too busy lately, and the novel was not short. Even after putting in a great deal of time, the earliest he could finish it would be sometime this week.

At present, he had written roughly eighty thousand words of The Devotion of Suspect X.

He was still seventy thousand words short of the one hundred and fifty thousand needed to finish it.

He should be able to complete it in two or three days.

Then he could submit it right away.

After sorting out his upcoming plans and immediate priorities, Natsume Chikage took out his phone, ready to write.

However, the moment he lit up the screen, LINE showed that he had unread messages.

He opened them curiously and found messages from Saionji Nanase and Sakai Shion, so he decided to reply before starting his writing.

Noticing that Saionji Nanase's message had been sent around ten o'clock that evening, he opened their chat first.

[Saionji Nanase: Good evening, Natsume-kun.]

[Natsume Chikage: Good evening. Is something the matter?]

He knew his reply was rather late and had assumed she might already be asleep, meaning he would not receive a response until tomorrow.

To his surprise, the message status changed to "Read" almost instantly.

Japan's LINE was quite similar to domestic WeChat and QQ in most of its functions.

But there was one crucial difference.

On Japan's LINE, once you opened a chat window with someone and read their message, the system immediately displayed "Read."

In such circumstances, failing to reply was considered extremely rude!

Even if you were criticized or complained about for it, most bystanders would probably not take your side.

In serious cases, you might even be bullied.

Some Japanese high school girls really did bully classmates over "reading without replying."

Such incidents had even frequently appeared in major news headlines.

This was absolutely not an exaggeration.

In Japan, the seriousness of "reading without replying" was just that absurd!